INTELLECTUAL

PROPERTY
“IP”
Dr. AbdelRahman Mohamed Sayed
 DEFINITION
• IP is a right to exclude any others from gaining economic benefit from
your own intellectual creation.
• It is intangible personal property. The property interest protected in
each case is not the tangible copy of the invention or writing—not the
machine with a particular serial number or the book lying on
someone’s shelf—but the invention or words themselves. That is why
intellectual property is said to be intangible.
• The creation, development, and protection of patents, copyrights, trademarks, and
trade secrets is obviously a matter of the highest importance for firms in high-tech
industries.
COPYRIGHTS
 COPYRIGHTS

• The legal right given “authors” to prevent others from copying the expression
embodied in a protected work.
• In 1886, 10 countries, including Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and
Switzerland, signed the Berne Convention—still by far the most influential
international copyright convention—at Berne, Switzerland. Today, most of the nations
of the world have ratified the Berne Convention.
• Unlike a patent, a copyright does not give its owner the right to prevent others from
using the idea or the knowledge contained in the copyrighted work; it only restricts
the use of the work itself.
 COPYRIGHTS

• The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property

Rights (TRIPS Agreement):
• Annex to the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization; it
creates a multilateral and comprehensive set of rights and obligations
governing the international trade in intellectual property.
• A Work: An artistic, literary, musical, or scientific creation. Not every
work that falls within these categories qualifies for copyright
protection, however. A work must also be original; that is, an author
must infuse creativity into it.
 COPYRIGHTS

• Neighboring Rights: neighboring rights similar to copyrights that are

protected by different statutes.
• Copyright laws generally apply to most works of an artistic, literary, musical, or
scientific nature. Technology, however, has a habit of producing new kinds of works
that fall outside of existing definitions. Legislatures respond to such changes in
different ways. Sometimes they make amendments to existing copyright laws to
incorporate these new works.
• New laws, parallel to but separate from the existing copyright statutes, are
enacted. The rights created by such laws are often called neighboring rights
because they are neighbors to, but not part of, an author’s copyright.
 COPYRIGHTS

Duration
The common rule for the duration of a copyright was established in 1948 in a revision
of the Berne Convention. That is, a copyright lasts for 50 years following the author’s
death).
The WTO’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights follows
this precedent, requiring WTO member states to provide copyright protection of at
least 50 years, and many nations, including the United States, have extended the
duration to 70 years following the author’s death.
 COPYRIGHTS
Exceptions to Copyright Protection
• Virtually every copyright law describes certain uses of works that do not constitute
an infringement of the author’s copyright. These exceptions, however, vary widely,
and only a few main examples are listed here. Copyrighted material can be used
lawfully in at least some countries
(1) in a court or administrative proceeding or by the police should the material
(such as a portrait) be needed to maintain public safety;
(2) for instructional purposes in schools;
(3) for purely private use (except that computer programs may not be copied,
regardless of the use involved);
(4) in brief quotations in scholarly or literary works or in reviews; and
(5) in extended quotations of newsworthy speeches or political commentaries.
 PATENTS
A patent is “a statutory privilege granted by
the government to inventors, and to others
deriving their rights from the inventor, for a
fixed period of years, to exclude other
persons from manufacturing, using, or selling
a patented product or from utilizing a
patented method or process.”
The U.S. Constitution of 1789. The
Constitution gives the U.S. Congress the
power “to promote the progress of science
and useful arts by securing for a limited time
to authors and inventors the exclusive right
to their respective writings and discoveries.”
 PATENTS
Inventions That Qualify for Patent Protection:
• Patents may be obtained for inventions in every field of technology, whether products
or processes, as long as they are “new, involve an inventive step, and are capable
of industrial application.”
• An invention is (1) new if no other inventor has obtained a patent for the same
invention;
• it (2) involves an inventive step if the “subject matter” of the invention was not
“obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the
art to which said subject matter pertains”;
• and it is (3) capable of industrial application if the product or process is one that can
be used in industry or commerce.
 PATENTS
Duration of Patents:
• When the TRIPS Agreement came into effect on January 1, 1995, the minimum term of
protection for patents was set at 20 years for WTO member states.
Scope of Patents:
• A patent is valid only within the territory of the state granting it; hence, states cannot
prevent the use of patented technology outside their territory.
• States will, however, stop the importation of goods from countries that infringe a
patent. On the other hand, many states will not stop someone inside their territory
from using patented technology (without permission from the patent owner) to
produce a product for export and sale abroad, although this is no longer allowed in
the United States.
TRADEMARKS
TRADEMARKS
 TRADEMARKS
Merchants and others use five marks to identify themselves
and their products. These are
1) trademarks (or sometimes true trademarks to distinguish them
from other marks),
2) trade names,
3) service marks,
4) collective marks, and
5) certification marks.

• In practice, all five are commonly called trademarks.

 TRADEMARKS
• A true trademark is “any word, name, symbol, or device or any combination
thereof adopted and used by a manufacturer or merchant to identify his
goods and distinguish them from those manufactured or sold by others.”
• A trade name, which is the name of the manufacturer rather than the
manufacturer’s products. PepsiCo, for example, is the well-known trade name
of PepsiCo, Inc., a company that manufactures and sells products under
trademarks such as Pepsi-Cola.
• A service mark is a “mark used in the sale or advertising of services to
identify the services of one person and distinguish them from the services of
another.”
A mark can be used for more than one purpose. Thus, KFC is both a trademark
and a service mark. Similarly, Coca-Cola is used both as a trade name and a
trademark.
 TRADEMARKS
• When trademarks or service marks are used by members of an
association, collective, or cooperative organization to identify their
products or services to members, they are called collective marks.
Examples include the identifying names and insignias of the American
Greek letter fraternities and sororities or the uniforms or cookies of
Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.
• A certification mark is a mark used exclusively by a licensee or
franchisee to indicate that a product meets certain standards.
 TRADEMARKS

• Acquiring Trademarks
Trademarks are acquired in two ways: (1) by use and (2) by
registration. In a few countries, registration is not available.
In two countries—Canada and the Philippines—a trademark can be
registered only if it has already been put into use. In the rest of the
world, a mark can be registered even if it has never been used in
commerce.
 TRADEMARKS

• Registration Criteria The common statutory definitional

criterion that appears in all trademark laws is
distinctiveness. This means that a mark must possess a
unique design that functions to distinguish the product on
which it is used from other similar products.
In sum, to be registered, a trademark must
(1) not infringe on another mark and
(2) be distinctive.
 TRADEMARKS

Registration Review:
Once a Trademark Office official determines that a mark is suitable
for registration, the mark will be published in the office’s official
gazette. Opponents to the registration then have a period of time—
typically 30 to 90 days—in which to oppose the registration or to ask
for an extension to do so.
• An opposition hearing is then held before a review board of the
Trademark Office.
• If no opposition is filed or if the review board rules in favor of the
applicant, a registration will issue.
INTERNATIONAL INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
ORGANIZATIONS
Two main international organizations take an active role in
defining and protecting international intellectual property
rights:
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and
The Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual
Property Rights (TRIPS Council) of the World Trade
Organization.
INTERNATIONAL INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
ORGANIZATIONS
World Intellectual Property Organization
• The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) was created in 1967 with the
adoption of the Stockholm Convention. It is an Intergovernmental organization
responsible for administering the principal international intellectual property
conventions and, generally, promoting intellectual property rights.
• Since 1994, the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center based in Geneva,
Switzerland, has offered Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) options, in particular
arbitration and mediation, for the resolution of international commercial disputes
between private parties. Developed by leading experts in cross-border dispute
settlement, the procedures offered by the center are widely used to resolve disputes
involving technology, entertainment, and other intellectual property issues.
INTERNATIONAL INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
ORGANIZATIONS
Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
• The Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Council)
was created in 1995 with the adoption of the Agreement Establishing the World Trade
Organization (WTO Agreement).
• The council is charged with overseeing the operation of the Agreement on Trade-
Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, which is an annex to the WTO
Agreement. In particular, the council is responsible for monitoring WTO member
state compliance with the Agreement on TRIPS, for helping members consult
with each other on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, and for
assisting members in settling disputes. The council consults with WIPO and
cooperates with WIPO’s constituent bodies.
THANK YOU